Big Blue Reservation: Struggles and Hope of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe
Mezzanine Gallery
September 5–December 20, 2025
One hundred seventy years ago, the Treaty of 1854 was passed by Congress, authorizing the move of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe to the Big Blue Reservation in Gage County, Nebraska. The Tribe watched as acre by acre of their land was sold off by the government and treaties were broken. In 1881, the Tribe was moved from this reservation to Red Rock, Oklahoma.
The Gage County Historical Society, along with the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, arranged a summer exhibit in 2024 to educate the public about this important part of American history. The Otoe-Missouria Tribe once called Southeast Nebraska home. Through the displacement of the people during the 1800s, they lost sacred traditions. Big Blue Reservation: Struggles and Hope of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe includes their voices of how that loss affected them into the present.
The Tribe and the Society wanted this exhibit to travel to other institutions to provide a cultural history of Nebraska, utilizing the Tribe’s perspective. As a result of this hard work, the Gage County Historical Society’s traveling exhibit will open in the Great Plains Art Museum’s mezzanine gallery on September 5, 2025, and will be on display until December 20.
This exhibit is on view in conjunction with Reflections of Our People, Our Ways, Our Land, the museum’s first-floor gallery exhibition that features artwork from 25 Otoe-Missouria artists.
Reflections of Our People, Our Ways, Our Land
First-Floor Galleries
September 5–December 20, 2025
Reflections of Our People, Our Ways, Our Land will be the first exhibition to center Otoe-Missouria artists and their creative work. 25 Otoe-Missouria artists, ranging from traditional to contemporary and working in any medium, were selected to co-create an art exhibition reflecting on healing, reconciliation, and reconnecting to the land. Jessica Moore Harjo, Ph.D. (Otoe-Missouria/Osage/Pawnee), is the curatorial director for this exhibition. Learn more about the exhibition and selected artists here.
Kirsten Furlong, Night Passages: Bobolink, 2021, acrylic and ink on paper, commissioned for the Elizabeth Rubendall Artist-in-Residence Collection. © Kirsten Furlong. Courtesy of Kirsten Furlong.
Wild Great Plains
Lower-level Gallery
October 3, 2025–February 21, 2026
Inspired by the Center for Great Plains Studies’ 50th annual conference, Wild Great Plains, this exhibition considers the concept of “wild” in art. Drawing from the Great Plains Art Museum’s permanent collection, Wild Great Plains explores how artists have connected with and portrayed the wild species and places of the region.